Cui bono. Who benefits?
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.” Frederic Bastiat
“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” FB
from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
Early Prevention–Home-based Behavioral-Systems Family Therapy with High-risk Juvenile Delinquents
Gordon, Arbuthnot, Gustafson and McGreen ran an in-home program for juvenile delinquents which produced a recidivism rate of 11.1% vs 66.7% for the control subjects during a follow-up period of more than 2 years. In other words, the recidivism rate of the program group was 16.6% of the non-program group which, because of the way the offenders were allocated, had shorter and less serious criminal histories than the program group. The 27 members of the treatment group had a total of 48 offenses in the year before treatment started, compared to a total of 31 for the control group.
Their treatment program was based on several assumptions. The first was that home-based programs are much more effective than institution-based programs, thence, most of the programming was done in the delinquent’s home. The second was that the most important part of the environment of the delinquent was the interaction between the delinquent and other members of his/her family. The third is that better results are obtained when the therapists are well-trained and well-supervised throughout the course of the study to ensure treatment integrity.
The treatment group members, and their families, had an average of 16 sessions lasting an average of 1.5 hr. The intervention had three phases: assessment, therapy and education. During the assessment phase, the therapists observed the family’s behavior patterns and the reinforcers maintaining them. Problem behaviors were discovered such as non-compliance with parental requests, curfew violations and parent-child conflict. Marital discord was discovered in less than half of the families which had both parents present. The focus of therapy was to reduce blaming and to show how each member was the product of life experiences which had taught the wrong things. Therapists relabelled motives to replace the unkind labels family members were currently using. Family members were taught to respond to each other differently by reinforcing desired behaviors. Parents were taught contingency contracting in which agreements were made to ensure that if the delinquent did something positive the parent would do something positive. Family members were also taught conflict management, communication skills and how to spend enjoyable time together. The parents were taught to keep data, use time-out and maintain note and message centers.
The same people were followed for 32 more months as adults, making the total follow-up period 5 years. During the second follow-up period, the recidivism rate for the treatment group was 8.7% compared to 40.9% for the control group. In other words, there were 4.7 times as many offenders in the control group.
Gordon, D. A., Arbuthnot, J., Gustafson, K., & McGreen, P. (1988). Home-based behavioral-systems family therapy with disadvantaged juvenile delinquents. American Journal of Family Therapy, 16, 243-255.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
